Reality, fantasy and you.
Seems that one employee is having a hard time understanding the difference. Because if he is real I would say that the only conflict he has seen has been a conflict of interest. See for yourself.
(I) was in gamestop, and spotted an employee (who is apparently serving in the national guard) in full acu’s minus his name plate, new balance tennis shoes and a gamestop t-shirt under his unzipped top. My husband ( who is ad army) called the dm and was told he was wearing his uniform to promote the release of cod mw3, and didn’t see what the problem was, seriously?
There’s a special NG regulation that covers goatees, right? I think it’s a SPC-only thing.
Seems like this SPC has never bothered to look at AR 670-1. Some items from the reg that this SPC seems to have missed:
e. Wear of military and civilian items.
(1) The wear of a combination of civilian and military clothing is prohibited, unless prescribed in this regulation or
other authorization documents approved by HQDA.
j. Wearing Army uniforms is prohibited in the following situations:
(1) In connection with the furtherance of any political or commercial interests, or when engaged in off-duty civilian
employment.
I would have found out what unit this guy belongs to and forwarded the picture to his commander.
Over the years, I’ve encountered this type of behavior with “nasty guard” and “reserviorist” soldiers from time to time. One incident that comes to mind when a reserviorist was wearing his class B uniform (a SPC as well) while working at the Great American Cookie Company at the food court. I asked him if I could produce a meal card, could I could get the chow for free? He was totally clueless… so I said never mind, I was on separate rats anyway.
So horrible. I can’t comprehend people who treat the uniform this way.
@ #2 I definitely think its worth tracking down his unit and airing this stuff.
SPC is the new PVT (at least in the NG and Reserves), they get promoted because of time, not because of knowledge or skill set. Its rather frustrating and to further the frustration once promoted its damn near impossible to demote them. And because they aren’t doing it “full time, day in and day out” they don’t really get a chance to learn everything they need to know (its impossible to stay on top of your MOS, other -10 skills, and still make an effort to be tactically sound in just one weekend a month and two weekends in the summer).
The good ones get it though and learn on their own time, and they make SGT sooner than guys like the one pictured. Or hopefully they do.
#5: You are right. Sadly, in the NG E5 is a Specialist and it goes all the way up until you reach about E7 and then something finally clicks. I know a lot of good E7, E8s, E9s, O2-O6’s but very few good E3-E6’s in the NG.
Considering the Goatee I’m going to guess that the SPC isn’t in any more since it has only been a week or so since he would have had to meet grooming standards.
That being said, it is obvious that his NCO’s never took the time to explain to him what a privilege it is to wear the uniform and if we don’t respect it then we can’t expect civilians to either.
I’m sure 30 minutes in the wood line would take care of that.
#5, it all depends on the unit and the NCOs. Hell, I had one of my troopies (a PFC) come in with a lip ferret that looked as scraggly as some of the ‘staches the women had at the Occupy Wall Street. I was getting ready to turn in a recommendation for E4 for him and asked him to take it to regulations. He said it was within regulations, even though it looked like he had nose mange.
He got a little butt-hurt when I locked him up and shredded each page of the recommendation right in front of him.
#6, there are some “junior” NCOs that are with their boots. I was one and was considered a hardass around my Battalion. When I got my 5’s and took a position as Supply Daddy for HHC 141, the Shammers learned damn quick that they didn’t run the supply room… I did.
The first time an E-4 walked into MY supply room and reached for the drawer for a new rank patch for his ACUs… He learned the price of losing his rank… 20 4-counts for each Pay Grade under E-5. He tried to complain that it wasn’t fair with his hands on his hips… OH HELL NO, CRAZY!!! His Platoon Daddy came in to see where his wayward Full-Bird-Private had gone to. He was learning the error of his ways from the new Supply Sergeant.
Top ended up taking me asside and telling me that the unit was a little more lax than normal units. I let him know that I ran my supply room like an Army supply room. He then let me know that I was his new pain in the ass and let me get back to work.
When I left, we passed a COMET with 95%. The only reason it wasn’t higher was because our Admins had lied to me about their computers. I found the culprits and got permission from the head pencil pusher to show them the error of their ways.
The guy’s a dirtbag for sure, but please don’t bring out ‘its just a nasty guard culture’ thing.
I’ve had my fill of seeing soldiers (regardless of active or reserve) who loosen their ties, unbutton their Class A jacket or ASU jacket at functions/in public or who just look like a wrinkle bomb in uniform.
I agree with Sandman regarding him/soldiers not being taught correctly. I still check regularly for irish pennants, use shirt stays and use edge dressing on my shoes because I was taught to take pride in my uniforms. Because that’s what my Drill Instructors did and taught us.
I would love to send his CO a nice little letter. And if he’s not a soldier. . . I’d like to send the nearest DA a nice little letter.
Also, I think that this type of issue is primarily a NG/Reserve issue because we only get our guys for a couple of days each month and due to the OPTEMPO of last 10 years “Sergeant’s Time” where that mentoring would usually take place has been largely eliminated.
And since you are often working with people who come from a distance to drill (I used to drive 2.5 hours each way with a previous unit) getting your section over for a BBQ or other bonding/mentoring session can be borderline impossible.
Just like PT Standards I’m not sure if there is an easy fix considering that we (NG) are being hit for low retention but at the same time have to motivate our troops who are often out of our influence 28 days a month. (Not to mention the troops who often seem to revert back to the “Crawl” level of competency on basic soldier skills after every drill.)
I’m seeing way to many E-5’s and E-6’s with two or three deployments getting out because of this.
@11 (Sandman): As a Commander, I enforce the two consecutive Record APFT failure and you are out. I have the highest APFT passing average in the Battalion – a measly 65%. I put an APFT whiteboard in the hallway. If you aren’t meeting the standard, your name is on there. It is helping motivate some people so they don’t show up on the naughty list.
Surprisingly, my weight control GO rate is 92%. It took me a few bar to re-enlistments to put a few people in line.
It’s when people take a lazy attitude to things that is when it gets out of control.
I wish it was just one weekend a month. I am on AKO everyday answering emails, making phone calls at work, and doing a weekly conference call with the full timers and key staff.
The whole one weekend a month is just a gimmick. We have guardsmen doing more now than ever before. It seems like every month someone is asking for someone to do some mission or training.
The OPTEMPO has gotten worse since drawdown!
@12
I’ll agree about the myth of the 1 weekend and 2 weeks. I think the only year I’ve had like that was during the ‘reset’ year after our most recent deployment and that was only because we had already done 2-3 years worth of planning and scheduling before we had demobed so that we would be ahead of the curve on the ARFORGEN cycle.
I don’t want to hijack this thread into the leadership challenges faced by citizen soldiers, I was just trying to head off the “Nasty Guard” comments that seem to float around at times on this and other military focused blogs.
@8 (Flagwaver):
Why is a supply guy involved in COMET? It stands for Commander’s Maintenance Evaluation Team. Nothing to do with Supply. We used our maintenance guys (M-Day). Took us 3 months to prepare by cleaning all our weapons and doing really good PMCS.
I have been on both sides, active and Guard and I believe it is TOTALLY a National Guard thing, hell, even living on post, you would never catch me outside my quarters without a cover on, AR 670-1 plus post standards are drilled into you on active duty, ask a private in a guard unit what AR 670-1 is, they don’t know, hell the only reason I did was because I was prior active. Any guard unit I have ever seen has had some lax aspect to it ( I know there is gonna be a guard guy flog me for this) but in an environment where you call your 1SG by his first name is just screwed up in y opinion, but yes, it’s out there and I always felt it needed to be fixed.